I was under the impression Smith and Wesson would give you the ship date of your gun over the phone. This morning I called them with a M&P ser. no. S957xxx and asked for the ship date. I was told 1953.

The gun had to be made in 1947 or 1948. I though this was a long time for it stay at the factory before shipping. This afternoon I called again and asked for the ship date of the same gun and the man told me he couldn't find that serial number. He said they don't have accurate records for guns going back that far.

One said he found a ship date (1953) and the other said they don't have it.

Was I wrong in thinking I could get the shipping year by phone?

If anyone has verified any ship date close to the serial number of this gun I would appreciate it if you could let me know.

I'd like to know if it was shipped in 1947.

Thanks.

Dennis

If the gun was an N frame, that "S" serial number would date to the early 1950's - maybe 1953, gotta be close.
You say, however, that it's an M&P, so that would put the gun in the early transition post-war years, maybe 1946 or early 1947.
The factory doesn't have any online records back past 1980 or so (when they adopted the 3Alpha4Numeric serial number sequences), and - at best - you might find someone that has a book that gives estimates (like the Standard Catalog of S&W by Nahas and Supica), so you could get lucky and find someone who is useful and will look it up for you, but if they misread the book you might end up with an estimate like you got - good info but the wrong model.

SmithNut,

Thanks a lot for the information. That really clears things up for me. I was getting confused.

Dennis

Dennis...even though your gun is from well before the records at S&W were computerized, as Smithnut says, you can still get the ship date. You can request a factory letter using the form available at the factory website. For $30 the factory historian will look up the date in the shipping logs and then go to the actual invoice in the old records. You will end up with a nice official looking letter with the ship date, original configuration and even who the gun was shipped to. It's well worth it if the gun is special to you or something makes you suspect it may have an interesting history to it.

Bob

SmithNut,
The serial number Dennis listed was S 957,XXX, not S 95,7XX, so it couldn't be an N frame. I think they stopped at under 400K.

Dennis,
I agree with the 1947-8 date on that M&P. If you really want to know (it could have sat in the vault for years), get a letter.